Duplicate voter IDs can get generated, says UP CEO; orders officials to remove them

Uttar Pradesh’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has said that repeated applications submitted by a voter can result in the generation of multiple Electors Photo Identity Cards (EPICs), and maintaining that periodic deduplication is actively carried out to purge duplicate entries from the electoral rolls.

The comment by the CEO’s handle on social media platform X came during an exchange with fact-checker Mohammed Zubair who flagged a case where a voter whose name was allegedly missing from the draft electoral roll, submitted applications and received multiple voter ID cards.

The UP CEO’s office disputed Zubair’s account, but acknowledged that multiple EPICs can be generated when the same individual submits multiple forms. It said deduplication was being carried out periodically through the ECINET platform and that efforts were under way to detect repeated applications at the submission stage itself.

“We are on the path to achieving the objective of catching multiple forms submitted by an individual at the submission stage only,” the CEO’s office said on X, said, adding that it expected to achieve the objective soon.

CEO Navdeep Rinwa also convened a virtual meeting with district election officials including electoral registration officers on Monday to discuss removal of duplicate entries in the electoral roll and prepare for a special campaign day on October 24.

According to a statement issued later, Rinwa ordered officials to seriously take up the task of identifying duplicate entries due to a voter submitting more than one application during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). “Such voters should be identified through Booth Level Officers (BLOs), and prompt resolution of cases related to duplicate entries should be ensured by having them fill out Form-7 as per rules,” Rinwa said.

“The resolution of cases of duplicate entries should be done on a priority basis as per rules to make the draft electoral roll to be published on 12 November, 2026 pure and error-free,” the statement said.

He also told field officers that many eligible citizens were still out of the electoral roll and a comprehensive campaign should be run to raise awareness among such eligible citizens and get their names registered in the electoral roll.